Winter has a way of testing everything you thought you knew. In Part 1, we talked about the foundation: reading tracks when the wind wipes half of them away, understanding how winter wildlife shifts patterns once the cold bites down, and how to scout terrain that looks deceptively simple under a few inches of snow. Those skills matter, and they’re what keep you from wandering blind through a frozen landscape.
self-sufficiency
Frankincense for Wound Healing: How the Ancient Egyptians Treated Injuries Without Antibiotics
Frankincense has this way of slipping through history almost unnoticed, except by the people who depended on it the most. Long before hospitals, penicillin, or even the idea of a sterile bandage, healers along the Nile kept small jars of this golden resin close at hand. They did not have the language of chemistry, but they understood something important. Frankincense for wound healing helped damaged skin settle down, stay cleaner, and heal a little faster than it would on its own.
How to Make Molasses at Home: The Forgotten Survival Sweetener Every Prepper Should Know
Before we get rolling, here is a quick intro to set the scene. For generations across the American South, Appalachia, the Great Plains, and the northern beet belt, families made their own sweeteners because sugar was expensive, hard to find, or sometimes unavailable for months at a time. Learning how to make molasses at home was a normal seasonal ritual and a lifeline skill. What we call a hobby today was a survival tactic then. With more preppers rethinking their food systems, this old skill is quietly making a comeback.
Flour Shelf Life: How to Store It for 10+ Years Without Bugs or Spoilage
When most folks think about stockpiling food, they picture buckets of rice, beans, and salt, but flour shelf life is what quietly determines how sustainable your food supply really is. You can have all the grains in the world, but if your flour turns rancid or full of bugs, you’ve lost more than calories, you’ve lost comfort, barter value, and baking flexibility.
Pet Food Long-Term Storage: How to Keep Your Animals Fed When Supplies Run Out
When things go sideways, grid down, supply chain breaks, trucks stop rolling, the last thing you want is your dog looking at you hungry while the shelves sit empty. Most folks stock up on beans, rice, and ammo… but forget their animals eat too.
Survival Gardening in Small Spaces: Grow Essential Foods Without Land (Part 1)
Food systems have become fragile in ways most people never notice, until a disruption hits. A few empty shelves at the grocery store might not seem like much, but they’re an early warning sign. Supply chains are optimized for convenience, not resilience.
Designing a Year-Round Medicinal Garden for Every US Climate
When most people think about growing herbs, they picture a sunny summer garden with neat rows of plants ready to snip for a cup of tea or a healing salve. That’s fine in the easy months. But what happens when a grid-down event, supply chain collapse, or even a bad flu season hits in the middle of January?
Using Vermicomposting To Obtain A Nutrient-Rich Fertilizer
You don’t have to be a tree-hugger to appreciate good dirt. Out on the homestead — when you’re miles from any store and nobody’s coming to save you — soil health is everything. It grows your food, keeps your chickens fed, and keeps your land alive. But here’s the kicker: most soil is hungry. You plant in it, harvest from it, and year after year, it gets weaker. Unless… you start feeding it right back.
Planting a Backyard Pharmacy: 8 Wild Medicinal Plants Every Survivalist Should Grow
When modern medicine fails, your backyard could become the most valuable pharmacy you’ll ever own. For preppers and survivalists, cultivating wild medicinal plants isn’t just a hobby – it’s a critical survival strategy. These resilient plants offer natural remedies for everything from infected wounds to chronic pain, and they’ll keep producing year after year with minimal care.
Easiest Perennials To Grow To Produce Food Year After Year
When it comes to self-sufficiency, few things are as satisfying as planting a garden that keeps on giving. For preppers and survivalists, perennials are the ultimate hack—plants that come back year after year with minimal effort.
10 Of The Most Common Items Preppers Forget To Stockpile
When it comes to emergency preparedness, most preppers focus on the basics: food, water, shelter, and security. These are undeniably critical, but survival in a crisis often hinges on the little things—items that are easily overlooked but can make a significant difference in comfort, health, and overall resilience
Properly Heating Your Home Using a Woodstove
As the temperatures drop, the warm, crackling glow of a woodstove can transform a house into a cozy retreat. Beyond its rustic charm, a woodstove is an efficient and sustainable way to heat your home—if used correctly. However, improper use can lead to inefficiency, wasted fuel, or even safety hazards.
Determining the Size of a Garden Required to Feed a Family
In these times of increasing food costs, political unrest in various areas of the world, and concern about how all of this will eventually affect us, there is a growing interest in home gardening.